Now, we have already discussed the ultimate significance of the great Bodhisattva precept of no stealing. The ultimate meaning of the precept is the infinite wisdom and compassion of all Buddhas, self-fulfilling awareness. Such awareness is way beyond all personal action and non-action. Now, this awareness of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas is opened and demonstrated, understood and

[01:05]

entered by receiving and maintaining this precept of not stealing in conjunction with being totally upright. And the true import of being upright is revealed by this precept of no stealing. Now, this is the final and glorious aspect of this precept, this great and gracious mind of Buddha is the inconceivably sweet fruit of practicing

[02:19]

this precept together with upright sitting. But there is also a bitter and potentially anxiety-arousing side to this precept. There is a kind of bitter and medicinal aspect which leads to this sweet fruit. So, I'm introducing the bitter aspect second, but it's usually introduced first.

[03:40]

The bitter aspect is the ordinary dualistic approach to the precept. It is approaching the precept in terms of doing and not doing, of stealing and not stealing, of transgressing and non-transgressing. At its limit, this approach overflows into the ultimate meaning, but at various points it's bitter work. I introduced the summit of the practice of this precept, and now I feel we have to go

[04:46]

down to the foothills. Perhaps the reason of doing it backwards was that, for me, this ultimate meaning, the gracious and glorious side of the precept was revealed to me in such an inspiring way by the stories of our ancestors. It was this full flowering of the precept that attracted me to Zen and drew me into practicing Zazen. So in homage to the fruit, I started with it. But, strictly speaking, the usual way of understanding is, first, start with the conventional

[05:47]

dualistic practice of the precepts and work towards the ultimate non-dual way. But, if you show people always the conventional first, the bitter first, they may just go away. They may not want to practice the detailed observation of their behavior around the issue of stealing. So, bodhisattvas, instead of drawing people's attention to their unskillfulness of this precept, often show them or give them a taste of skillfulness. This is so inspiring that they are willing eventually to face how unskillful they are and start working on getting more skillful around this precept.

[06:50]

This was true for me, but great skillfulness encouraged me to look at how unskillful I am in regard to this precept and many others. So, Nagarjuna says, as is repeated over and over through the centuries, that without relying on everyday common practices, the Absolute, Ultimate Truth cannot be expressed. And, without approaching the Absolute, Ultimate Truth, nirvana cannot be attained.

[08:00]

So, I introduced the Ultimate Truth that attains nirvana first. Now, we need to go back and rely on the ordinary common practices of this precept. So, although he said, although he spoke this way, Nagarjuna, it's true that you can't really teach the Ultimate unless we have studied in practice the ordinary level of understanding, but you can attract people with the Ultimate and then have them deal with the conventional. Or, sometimes you just meet a group of people who have already mastered the conventional, so you can tell them the Ultimate right off. They've reached the limit of the ordinary practices and are just ready for the Ultimate teaching.

[09:04]

There are many Zen stories like that, where the monk has been practicing thoroughly, for many, many years, the conventional approach, and she's just ripe for a little bit more sunlight, and then she drops off. In some sense, maybe I don't have to mention these somewhat troubling, bitter difficulties that are involved in practicing this precept. Maybe if I just say that and you look at yourself, and if you don't see any bitter difficulties, if you don't see any problems, then maybe you can be fairly sure that you're in massive denial.

[10:16]

Maybe you don't need me to point out the wonderful examples of the ancestors, as they struggled to look very carefully at their conduct to see if it was upright. If you are struggling yourself with this issue of what it means, in the conventional sense, not to steal, then that may be good enough, and you don't need any examples from the past centuries to let you know you have company. So, maybe you don't need me to say any more about this, but maybe you do. In the process of translating an ancient text on these Bodhisattva precepts,

[11:35]

in the notes, I found surprisingly powerful negative results being described for the act of stealing. And as I read, well, see, I didn't read it right away, it was a gradual process of translating, see, so it comes out very slowly, you don't exactly know what it means at first, and gradually it gets clearer and clearer, what's being said. As it gradually dawned on me what they were trying to say here, and as the message came out, I became uncomfortable. For example, one note says that,

[12:37]

it says, what is the Dharma known as taking that which is not given? It doesn't answer, but it says, after all, if we steal, the fruit of all our generosity and keeping of the precepts will not be attained. Another note says, if you commit the five deadly sins, the five big time sins in the Buddhist book, like killing your mother, killing your father, killing an Arhat, not killing a Buddha, but just drawing blood from Buddha,

[13:40]

or creating some kind of schism in the Sangha. It's okay to make schisms in your Sangha. If you break any of these super bad precepts of the monks, you can still be saved, but if you steal property from the Sangha, you cannot be saved. Stealing amongst Okesa extends the evil of murdering, exceeds the evil of murdering 84,000 mothers and fathers. The Buddha said, stealing is an evil which causes karmic retribution in the form of impoverishment, and at death one enters hell.

[14:50]

Sarangama Sutra says, the stealing mind cannot be removed, and the dust of the sensual world cannot be left behind. Although one may presently manifest much wisdom and concentration, if one has not gotten rid of one's stealing mind, then certainly one will fall into evil destinies. A certain monk named Gavampati took a grain of rice to see if it was ripe. He could not return it to its original place on the stalk. Because he committed this action, he was born as a cow for 500 generations. However, later, happily, he became an arhat, but still, he regurgitated his food like a cow.

[16:02]

A warning for monastery officials. Buildings, equipment, timber, arable land, domestic animals, rice, barley, and all belongings to the monastery should not be circulated outside. They should be used only for the monastery and should not be sold. Therefore, they are called permanent possessions. It also comments that ignoring the Sangha and mistreating the property that belongs to the Sangha, such as cutting down trees and bamboo in the garden, is stealing from the Sangha. A monk named Daoming of Sui province borrowed a bundle of kindling from the Sangha and used it to heat water to wash his feet. He forgot to return the kindling and later died.

[17:19]

Shun Shu, a monk of the same dormitory, saw Daoming in a dream and talked to him. Daoming said his feet burned for more than a year. Here's another warning for officials of the monastery. There was a Zen master named Jur who was sitting in the abbot's room one evening and suddenly he felt a hot wind and heard clanking of chains and went out to investigate. He beheld someone fastened by a chain to the temple gate being tortured with fire. Master Jur asked, what's the reason for this torture? The victim said, my name is Yong. When I was abbot of this monastery, I did not really keep things separate and used the offerings donors made especially for the monks' welfare to build new temple buildings.

[18:34]

To build a new training hall. That is why I'm suffering this way. Master Jur said, you used skillful means. You should be pardoned. Yong said, please use what is given for building temples for building monks' quarters as an offering to the monks. Then I will be pardoned. Master Jur did as he was asked and one evening Yong appeared to him again in a dream and said, because of your kindness I was pardoned and born back in the realm of humans. I have now been a monk for three births. There is also a story of a person who borrowed 60 bushels of millet from a temple and falsely reported that he had returned it.

[19:37]

A monk of the temple knew about this and became angry and vowed that after this Jew, this man named Jew dies, I hope he becomes a cow on our temple land. After Jew died, a cow gave birth to a yellow calf that had white markings on its leg. After a few days, the markings became clear and they were Chinese characters for Jew's name. Thousands of people came every day to see this example of karmic retribution. Jew's son came and bought the cow for 100 bushels of millet and took care of it as he would his father. Part of what comes to my mind is that the severity of the punishments that are proposed here may just be a reflection of the Buddhist communities trying to protect its property.

[20:58]

And that they imagined somehow these terrible results from taking the slightest thing from the Buddhist community. The intensity of the negative results seems to be extremely strong whenever we take anything from the Buddhist Sangha. But anyway, what they're proposing here is slight infractions in the realm of stealing, taking a little thing from the Sangha can have big bad results. And considering this, one may feel encouraged to be very careful. And hearing the stories of oneself or others being very careful about this, when we're successful, it's not so bitter.

[22:08]

It's even sometimes enjoyable to be very careful. However, sometimes we don't feel like making the effort. For example, if you live or work for some temple and you need to do correspondence on behalf of the temple, then you would use the temple's stamps as such correspondence. Now, if you had just one desk to do the temple's business and also your own business, you might write your personal letters at the same desk. And your personal letters, you might have a different set of stamps.

[23:13]

And if you were careful and kept your personal stamps in one drawer and the temple stamps in the other drawer, it wouldn't be too difficult to remember which was which and use the temple stamps for the temple letters and personal stamps for your personal letters. But if you had two desks that were in separate rooms or separate buildings and you were paying a personal bill at the desk where you have the temple stamps and your personal stamps were in another room, you might not want to walk all the way across the house or across the temple to get your personal stamps. It might be inconvenient.

[24:21]

Or you might say, well, I'll just use these temple stamps and then later I'll go get the personal stamps and bring them back. But you might forget, like this one guy forgot to return the bundle of firewood. Now, there it is. There's kind of a problem you might run into. Now, this is one of the reasons why some people want to practice in such a way that they don't have any personal correspondence. They stop writing letters, personal letters. Or they don't have any money to buy any stamps for personal letters. So they don't have to keep track of which is which. Or you might be in a situation where you're driving a car on behalf of your business or your religious organization

[25:45]

and you get reimbursed for your mileage. And then when you make the trip, you look at the odometer to see how long the trip was. And then which way do you round off the number? Which rounding off policy do you use? Now, you could use the policy of, well, I'll always round off in favor of my business or I'll always round off in favor of the temple. And over time the temple will accumulate, you know, extra miles that I won't get reimbursed for. That might be your policy. And then some other time you might think, well, over the years I gave the temple so many miles, so many free miles,

[26:52]

that actually the temple owes me something so maybe I can have some stamps. But then again you might not think that. You might never think that way. But you might. You might think, geez, I don't have any money and I need a stamp and I probably could take this one stamp considering the many, many miles I rounded off in favor of the temple. Or one can say, no, no, I won't ever think like that. But anyway, one is working with one's mind and watching one's mind and this kind of work is not necessarily pleasant. Some people find it rather disgusting, limiting, nauseating, and would rather just forget the whole thing and just, you know, grab the stamp and put it on the letter and drive around town and, you know, take a guess at how far you drove. There's a dash off a little number there.

[27:54]

Give me, you know, reimburse me for blah, blah. And make it big enough to make sure that you, you know, not cheating yourself. And then there are those situations, you know, where you get too much change, have some store. Or those situations where you... A friend of mine bought a necklace a while ago, a very nice necklace, and it was priced $21. She was surprised that it was priced that because she thought it was much nicer than a $21 necklace. And she, right away she told the person in store, she said, are you sure this is priced correctly? It seems too low to me.

[29:06]

The person said, no, that's right. So she bought it for $21. But she said to the person, would you check with your manager later to make sure that it's the right price? The person said, okay, I will. And she left her telephone number for the person to call her, just in case. And the person called and said, you were right, it was a mistake, it was supposed to be $210. So she said, oh, that's more what I thought it would cost, I don't want it. She brought it back. And they said, you know, thank you very much for that. They gave her a lifetime 10% discount. And of course, usually when people give you, you know, too much change and you say, you gave me too much change, didn't you? Usually they say, oh, geez, I wish, why aren't there more people like you? They're very happy when it happens. It's somewhat rewarding. But there's also a little pang there, too, that sometimes happens.

[30:14]

Someplace in the neighborhood. I was also at a dinner once recently and I added up the bill and, again, they didn't add it up right, they made it too low, the bill. The person I was with said, well, what should we do? I said, well, there's no question what we should do. So we called the person over and told her that she didn't add it up right, that she was too low. And she was very happy, too. But there was something, a little thing there. Besides being happy for the waitress. Some little thing, some little catch. One of my favorite stories is one of a man who lived in China.

[31:19]

And he took care, he was like a bookkeeper or something like that for a wealthy man. He took care of the man's business. And then he died. And then later the wealthy man died, too. And the wealthy man, in appreciation for how well this man, this assistant, this bookkeeper had cared for his business, he gave him a lot of gold. And his executor brought the gold to the house of this man's children. And the head of the household said, My father didn't do anything to justify this gift. I won't accept it. There's no reason why he should get extra money for just doing his job.

[32:25]

And they pressed him, but he wouldn't accept it. Then they took him to court. And the judge ordered him to accept the money. He still said that it wasn't proper for his family to receive this money for his father just doing his regular job, which he agreed upon what compensation there should be. But he was forced to receive the money and he gave it away to a Buddhist monastery. So these are the kinds of situations.

[33:31]

that have to be looked at in meticulous detail. If we practice this precept, if we study this precept with complete uprightness, it comes to its great fruit. But we really can't practice upright sitting if we overlook these common, ordinary, nitty-gritty, troublesome little considerations around material things that come to us. And it's not that pleasant sometimes to deal with this. I said that before, didn't I? One time I was up for dinner and I ordered food. And I was going to pay for this dinner, by the way.

[34:35]

And there were several people at the table. We had pizza. And when the pizza arrived, I reached out to take a piece of the pizza and managed to get it. And then everybody else got their pieces too. Now the piece I took was one of the big ones. And to tell you the truth, since I was paying, I had this idea that I had a right to that piece. I didn't even take two pieces, but I did take a big one. Sometime later, I don't remember exactly how much later, someone sitting near me sweetly questioned if I really thought that piece was intended for me.

[35:39]

I could have, of course, waited until everyone else took a piece to see if by chance they left that one for me. But I didn't. I went kind of on the early side to get my piece and just happened to come up with a big one. You know, how do you tell? How do you tell if you really have permission and support to get something? It's not that easy sometimes to tell. If I had waited and that piece was left, then could I be sure? Still, maybe everybody's afraid to take the big one. Because they can see me, I kind of, some unconsciously, I scowl. Some body language makes them feel like, don't take that big one. I'm waiting for that one. I'm not going to take it first, but... No, we were all afraid to take the big one. We knew you wanted it.

[36:46]

We didn't really leave it there for you. Or you might just sit there, you know, and nobody takes any. Well, if nobody's going to take the food, I guess somebody has to. At Chinese banquets, the food comes out and nobody moves. Nobody reaches. So they try to get somebody else to go first. Come on, have some. No, I don't want it. You go first. And they keep pressuring and pressuring until finally somebody breaks down. Not so much because they want the food, but because they're afraid what the person will do if they don't reach. Then they think, well, maybe then you can be sure. I didn't go first. But when do you know? It's not that easy to know. You can't be sure. You don't know what's going on, really. You could possibly be taking what's not given. And the karmic consequences of taking the biggest piece of deep food could be very serious, especially if the other people at the table are Buddhists. The better the company, the more dangerous it is to go before them.

[38:10]

And of course, the better the company, the more they try to trick you into going before them. It's a difficult situation, one that one might want to get out of as soon as possible. By some kind of spacing out confusion. Or perhaps getting angry might help. Or something, anyway, to help us not notice how subtle it is in our interactions. To find and tune into that dimension where things come to us, really. And where we trust that dimension. And we tune into that dimension and things come to us and we don't pull them to us. We don't take without permission, without our right. And where our right is not something we determine by ourselves. This is difficult work. And without doing it, you can't really practice this precept in its ultimate meaning. Without relying on this kind of work,

[39:16]

the ultimate significance of the precept cannot be taught, cannot be expressed. So, usually this is presented first, but really, it's not really first or second. It's the conventional presented, then the ultimate, then the conventional, then the ultimate, then the conventional. You go back and forth, back and forth. When you attain nirvana, you go right back into the situation at the restaurant and try to have your pizza in the true way. You deal with the same questions again. So, this is the conventional or bitter aspect of considering this precept.

[40:27]

The aspect of considering in meticulous detail all the different aspects of your conduct around which you receive. And then the compassionate level, the compassionate aspect of the precept is one that is nicely demonstrated in the story of the Catholic priest who gave the thief the silver plates and candlestick holders. Now, I don't know the story very well, but perhaps if those silver treasures belonged to the church, he perhaps didn't have the authority or permission to give them away to a thief. Even if they were his personal ones, perhaps he needed to check with some of his relatives

[41:29]

to see if they would mind his giving them away. The compassionate level of this is that even if they were the church's, and even if he didn't have permission, and even if he would have gotten in big trouble for taking something from the church in order to give to this thief, in order to convert this thief, as a bodhisattva, he should definitely do so. Even though he might get severe punishment for taking this silver and giving it away without permission. Of course, the point of the church is to convert beings. But still, even if you do that without permission, you still may be punished. And the bodhisattva is willing to be punished for taking something from the rich church if it would benefit

[42:32]

one being. That level of concern is not exactly common, ordinary, conventional level. It's called the compassionate perspective on these. . So I don't know for sure, but I may have some rough times ahead of me

[43:33]

as a result of the stealing I've done. I may have to go to hell. So I wonder what will become of me there. And should I fortify myself against that? Should I get earplugs? Should I invest in body armor? How will I deal with the

[44:36]

horrible screams that I may be exposed to? And I think the thing that would help most is if I would just be concerned first and foremost for the other beings in hell. Really put all my energy into their welfare. Then maybe it wouldn't be such a big issue where I was. Then maybe it wouldn't be such a big issue as if I'm reaching to put salve on someone else's burns if somebody else sticks a branding iron into me. So I think that will be my attempt from now until and after I enter hell will be primarily to be concerned with helping other people sit up straight

[45:38]

in their pain, in their hells and in their heavens too in case I happen to go there. Although in heaven they probably don't care what posture they're in. Hey man! I don't need any postural correction or assistance. I'm perfectly happy with this one. And then of course some people in hell they feel like you know I got enough problems. Don't ask me to sit up straight. I'm not exactly asking you to sit up straight I'm just suggesting you might be more comfortable if you did. Although I know how you feel. Now I feel like

[46:46]

I painted a more complete picture of the wonderful marvelous precept of no stealing. So tomorrow perhaps we'll discuss the precept of no sexual greed. Thank you.

[47:31]

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